An imaginative but stilted novel blending SF, horror, and fantasy.
A demigod goes to war against a vampire from space in Lopez’s debut SF novel.
The planet of Ninivon is ruled by a tyrant: The alien Vampire and his blood-drinking, purple-eyed soldiers arrived from space and conquered the free nations, human and humanoid alike. Zeno fought the Vampire’s forces as a member of the Rangers—the elite fighting force of the Republic—but after hearing reports of the death of his closest friend, Alexandra, he quit the war. Now, 10 years later, he serves as a librarian in the semi-independent city of Sarpedon, keeping his head down so as not to wind up in one of the Vampire’s feeding camps. He’s on the verge of suicide when he has a vision of Alexandra, in the form of an owl, who reveals to him that she’s still alive. Soon after, Zeno gets word of a rebel group called the Blue Order that has begun launching terrorist attacks against the Vampire’s rule. It turns out Alexandra is fighting with the rebels, and though Zeno questions their tactics, he’ll do whatever he can to keep Alexandra safe from harm. Meanwhile, Zeno begins to see the sign “Σ” everywhere, a mysterious symbol associated with the wisdom goddess Sofia. The followers of the goddess believe that Zeno is descended from a special bloodline and that he alone can defeat the Vampire and liberate Ninivon. But is he up to the task? Lopez’s muscular prose succeeds in creating a sense of wonder in this Greek-tinged sci-fi epic: “Some of the Stokians standing along the halls held some kind of trumpet-like instrument. They now raised these and blew them. Zeno had never heard such a sound before. It was neither pleasant or unpleasant. It just was, and was otherworldly. It was a sound from outer space.” Unfortunately, the proportion of in-world mythology to character development is out of balance; readers will frequently find themselves sifting through expository esoterica when they would rather just get to know Zeno and Alexandra as people.
An imaginative but stilted novel blending SF, horror, and fantasy.Pub Date: July 15, 2024
ISBN: 9798891320512
Page Count: 334
Publisher: Atmosphere Press
Review Posted Online: June 11, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.
Are we not men? We are—well, ask Bigfoot, as Brooks does in this delightful yarn, following on his bestseller World War Z(2006).
A zombie apocalypse is one thing. A volcanic eruption is quite another, for, as the journalist who does a framing voice-over narration for Brooks’ latest puts it, when Mount Rainier popped its cork, “it was the psychological aspect, the hyperbole-fueled hysteria that had ended up killing the most people.” Maybe, but the sasquatches whom the volcano displaced contributed to the statistics, too, if only out of self-defense. Brooks places the epicenter of the Bigfoot war in a high-tech hideaway populated by the kind of people you might find in a Jurassic Park franchise: the schmo who doesn’t know how to do much of anything but tries anyway, the well-intentioned bleeding heart, the know-it-all intellectual who turns out to know the wrong things, the immigrant with a tough backstory and an instinct for survival. Indeed, the novel does double duty as a survival manual, packed full of good advice—for instance, try not to get wounded, for “injury turns you from a giver to a taker. Taking up our resources, our time to care for you.” Brooks presents a case for making room for Bigfoot in the world while peppering his narrative with timely social criticism about bad behavior on the human side of the conflict: The explosion of Rainier might have been better forecast had the president not slashed the budget of the U.S. Geological Survey, leading to “immediate suspension of the National Volcano Early Warning System,” and there’s always someone around looking to monetize the natural disaster and the sasquatch-y onslaught that follows. Brooks is a pro at building suspense even if it plays out in some rather spectacularly yucky episodes, one involving a short spear that takes its name from “the sucking sound of pulling it out of the dead man’s heart and lungs.” Grossness aside, it puts you right there on the scene.
A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.Pub Date: June 16, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-9848-2678-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Del Rey/Ballantine
Review Posted Online: Feb. 9, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
An author to watch, Buehlman is now two for two in delivering eerie, offbeat novels with admirable literary skill.
Cormac McCarthy's The Road meets Chaucer's Canterbury Tales in this frightful medieval epic about an orphan girl with visionary powers in plague-devastated France.
The year is 1348. The conflict between France and England is nothing compared to the all-out war building between good angels and fallen ones for control of heaven (though a scene in which soldiers are massacred by a rainbow of arrows is pretty horrific). Among mortals, only the girl, Delphine, knows of the cataclysm to come. Angels speak to her, issuing warnings—and a command to run. A pack of thieves is about to carry her off and rape her when she is saved by a disgraced knight, Thomas, with whom she teams on a march across the parched landscape. Survivors desperate for food have made donkey a delicacy and don't mind eating human flesh. The few healthy people left lock themselves in, not wanting to risk contact with strangers, no matter how dire the strangers' needs. To venture out at night is suicidal: Horrific forces swirl about, ravaging living forms. Lethal black clouds, tentacled water creatures and assorted monsters are comfortable in the daylight hours as well. The knight and a third fellow journeyer, a priest, have difficulty believing Delphine's visions are real, but with oblivion lurking in every shadow, they don't have any choice but to trust her. The question becomes, can she trust herself? Buehlman, who drew upon his love of Fitzgerald and Hemingway in his acclaimed Southern horror novel, Those Across the River (2011), slips effortlessly into a different kind of literary sensibility, one that doesn't scrimp on earthy humor and lyrical writing in the face of unspeakable horrors. The power of suggestion is the author's strong suit, along with first-rate storytelling talent.
An author to watch, Buehlman is now two for two in delivering eerie, offbeat novels with admirable literary skill.Pub Date: Oct. 2, 2012
ISBN: 978-1-937007-86-7
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Ace/Berkley
Review Posted Online: Sept. 1, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2012
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